Posted on 07/10/2017 7:54:52 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Cruise ships can emit as much particulate matter as a million cars every day and the air quality on deck can be as bad as the worlds most polluted cities, according to a new investigation.
An undercover investigation by the United Kingdoms Channel 4 television station has revealed the shocking levels of pollution found on board some cruise ships.
Channel 4s Dispatches program sent its investigators onto P&O Cruises 250-meter-long Oceana vessel, which can carry more than 2,000 passengers.
The program focused on monitoring ultra-fine particles in the air around the vessel, and the investigation showed that just one ship can emit the same amount of particulate matter in one day as one million cars. [ ]
Cruise ships typically use heavy fuel oil in their engines, a residual product that is left over after petrol and diesel have been produced. It has very high sulfur content, but is more cost-effective than other fuels.
P&O responded to the programs findings by highlighting that it has reduced its fuel consumption by 28% since 2005 and that the company slashed CO2 emissions by 20% in 2014 alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at euractiv.com ...
Oh, I am going to feel ultra guilty come September, cruising the Caribbean. But I’m sure I’ll get over it.
We departed out of Port Liberty in NJ on the 17th of June. 57 years old and my first cruise! Loved it though. Sailed on Anthem of the Seas, Royal Caribbean line.
RC does a good job. Be sure to ask for room service door hangers for free Continental breakfast. Also, don’t forget to go to the formal dining room for full service breakfast.
I did a quick calculation in my head and figured that if there around 300 cruise ships in service at any given time, then it would take around 3,500 to 4,000 cars to equal the daily pollution of one cruise ship. Does that sound about right?
See my table above. It works from the top to the bottom starting with 1 million cars and ends up comparing the particulate from those million cars to one cruise ship. The calc starts with an average number of miles driven per year and an average fuel economy (just educated guesses on my part). That gets you to 3,915 tons of gasoline burned per day for those million cars. I guesstimated that a car particulate output is 25 times higher than for a diesel propelled cruise ship which is the equivalent of 157 tons of residual oil burned on a cruise ship per day. That matches pretty closely to the value I found at the source cited - 140 to 150 tons of oil burned per day per cruise ship. My rough calc confirms that one million cars driven 36 miles each day produces the same amount of particulate as one average cruise ship.
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